Discussion: Paper 6

Mr Law

The essence of management is optimization, and the theme of the Paper is, therefore, the opportunities which the new regional authorities will have for optimization. In the early years after 1974 the existing water supply undertakers will operate as provisional management units, and I have therefore dwelt more on the work they should do than upon their organization.

On the subject of water sources and storage, I would stress the new regional water authorities must make reappraisals of their existing storages. As Mr Hetherington mentioned, conjunctive use of upland and underground storages with abstraction from rivers near to the tidal limit is the best proposition. Fig. 1 in the Paper gives the key to this.